


Quid Prose Quo

by HappyDagger



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Hannibal Lecter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Horror, Bonding, Control Issues, Humiliation, I'm not sure how to word an appropriate warning, Jealous Hannibal Lecter, Loss of Control, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Missing Scene, Omega Will Graham, One Shot Collection, Possessive Hannibal Lecter, Rape/Non-con Elements, Requests, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Submission, if you have tag or tw suggestions please leave a comment - tyia!, is that AU though? for these guys?, may be triggering for some people, stephen king references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-07-15 00:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16051304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyDagger/pseuds/HappyDagger
Summary: A collection of Hannigram requests.1) Anima & Animus: Hannibal is bored and lonely. Will just wants a prescription.2) Shadow: Will hopes to cheat death. Hannibal wants to help. They both hate goodbyes.3) Persona & Self: A missing scene in which Will and Hannibal continue their conversation after Will brings Hannibal Randall Tier's corpse.





	1. Anima & Animus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alphadox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphadox/gifts), [vazoola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vazoola/gifts), [Lizzy22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzy22/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is bored and lonely. Will just wants a prescription.
> 
> For Lizzy22 <3

"I keep watching myself fight the same losing battle, searching each scene for an exit I somehow hadn't seen before." The slight, dark-haired woman sitting across from Hannibal in a comfortable chair blotted an escaping tear with a tap of tissue. She blinked and pursed her red lips.

He’d exerted himself close enough to her body for Hannibal to catch the scent of his sweat in her Chanel perfume. "You're looking for Theseus' string. You’ll never find it because that isn’t your story. You've been assigned a Sisyphean fate; you’re trapped in a cycle, not a labyrinth.”

Hannibal's patient turned away from the enormous windows, which framed them both in autumn's subdued sunlight. She searched Hannibal’s face, finding no answers. Yet again. "But Sisyphus never escaped. Did he? I thought he kept pushing the rock up the hill and watching it roll down again... forever."

“You can’t escape the boulder nor remove it from its track.”

“No.” She said softly. “I know I’m bound to him. It’s an abomination.”

“But you are not, Margot and you can break the rock.”

Her chocolate drop eyes darted to meet his. “Would I still be bound to the track? How does that work?”

“It’s extremely rare but occasionally possible for people like your brother to have more than one partner.”

Margot’s eyes flashed in horror then narrowed.

“Perhaps it’s possible for people like you as well.”

“No, it isn’t.” She looked Hannibal up and down. “You people get everything. Why wouldn’t you get the exceptions as well?”

“It doesn’t mean anything without people like you, if that’s any comfort.” _There’s always something lacking._

“It isn’t.”

“Yes, he closed doors you cannot open again.” Hannibal pressed his fingertips together. “I’ve seen several widows and widowers in my years of practice and I can tell you, you will be free of him nonetheless.”

“Free and alone is better than this.” Margot deposited her folded tissue into her clutch and snapped it shut. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Are you leaving early without telling me? This isn’t like you.” He stood when she did.

“It is today.”

Hannibal nodded. “I’ll see you out.”

 

In the waiting room sat a beautiful man with a mess of dark hair. He kept it trimmed neatly on both sides but it was meant to fall wavy and soft down his crown.

Hannibal knew instantly, _I want you for myself._ “Mr. Graham?”

The man looked up with large, tragic, deep blue eyes.

“Your appointment isn’t until 6 o’clock.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he muttered. He avoided looking at Margot as she passed in reverence to her privacy.

She said goodbye to Hannibal, eyeing Mr. Graham. She smirked at Hannibal and popped her eyebrows suggestively.

“Until next week.”

Mr. Graham rubbed cupped fingers through his patchy stubble then stood at his full height. “I’m sorry about this but I have to cancel the consultation-”

_“Appointment.”_

“Yes. Well, thanks for your time anyway.”

“Come in and tell me why.”

“I can’t. I have to go.”

“Where? You had an appointment with me until just now.”

“Well…”

“Please,” Hannibal gestured to his office, “I need you to sign a paper. It won’t take long.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Fine.”

Mr. Graham tucked his hands into the pockets of his military-style jacket and paced around Hannibal’s open office, examining the art displayed around him and the library overhead.

The thick soles of his boots didn’t look very clean.

“Why are you canceling our first appointment?”

“I don’t need therapy.”

“Is that so?” Hannibal jotted a note at his desk. “What changed since your referral and confirmation?”

Will kept his distance but leaned in, hands still in his jacket, to study one of Hannibal’s sketches.

Hannibal ran a hand down his woven silk vest and cleared his throat. “Did you hear me, Mr. Graham?”

“Please, call me Will.” Will rubbed his temple. A crease of tension tightened his brow. “I… I didn’t catch that, no.”

“Will,” Hannibal’s open hand gracefully pointed to the soft suede chair, “sit down, please. Tell me why you’re avoiding this appointment.”

“No, thank you.” Will walked around the chair in uneasy half circles instead. “Sitting down and telling you that, heh,” Will’s jaw clenched as he forced a smile, “that sounds a lot like therapy to me. What do I have to sign?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Will snuck a fast glance and went back to pacing behind the chair. “It’s not personal. I don’t like other men.”

“Men?”

“You know what I mean. Like us.” Will glared at him then looked away. “It gets aggressive.”

“Us? Ah. Dr. Bloom had wanted to refer you to our colleague, Dr. Du Maurier, an outstanding psychiatrist and a _gentle_ , complex woman.”

Will glanced at Hannibal, raising an eyebrow. “Oh? Can’t I meet with her?”

“Alas, she’s on a speaking tour in Europe.”

Because he’d moved a few pieces here and there.

 

Hannibal was bored, had been for too long. He asked Alana for someone interesting, in so many words. She was uncomfortable with the amorous feelings of an ‘unpredictable’ patient and so mentioned that she found him fascinating while, ostensibly, asking Hannibal for strictly confidential professional advice. She knew that Hannibal would help, if only subconsciously.

One morning, Hannibal told her a story over coffee and fresh scones, which underscored the danger of patients who projected feelings of love onto their therapists. She was already nervous. Hannibal merely helped Alana give herself permission to unload her problem onto someone else. Unfortunately, Hannibal knew she wouldn’t hand over her enigma for him to play with. She saw Will as vulnerable, in spite of her fear of him and saw Hannibal as too severe with his power, in spite of her trust in him.

Hannibal assumed Alana would refer Will to their mutual colleague, and so allowed Bedelia to find out that he himself had been approached about headlining the European lecture series, (which he’d politely declined). Hannibal didn’t lie to his friend. He simply failed to disabuse her of the absurd idea that she was taking the speaking tour from him, instead of for him.

Hannibal wouldn’t generalize to any group he supposedly ‘belonged’ in, but he for one _did_ seem to get everything he wanted.

 

“So you are, in fact, still seeking therapy?”

Will half smiled. “Not from you.”

“Well, then.” Hannibal took long quick strides to his short cabinet and retrieved a Pinot Noir that reminds him of black cherries and cool pebbled beaches. “Here.” With a twist and yank, he popped the cork. “Have a glass with me and the rest of our conversation is officially not-therapy in a very legally binding sense.”

“Heh. Thanks, but-”

“I cleared the next hour and a half of my costly time for you. Surely, you can give me a few moments of yours.”

Will took the glass Hannibal offered.

“Good. Sit down, please.”

Will sat and sipped the wine.

Hannibal took a fountain pen and leather clipboard off his desk. “Dr. Bloom will write you another referral, if you insist, but I need to know why this referral was unacceptable to you and what you’re looking for instead.” He sat facing Will, repressing a smile. “So? What exactly are you looking for?”

Will drank more then set his glass down and sighed. “I need a prescription.”

Hannibal’s hand lifted from his wrist. “Wonderful. I can help you with that.”

Will pushed back into his chair, chewing the inside of his lip. “Not you.”

“Why?”

“Because you couldn’t understand. You’re already pissing me off. I don’t want to fight you.” Will stood abruptly. “Goodnight.”

“That’s funny.”

Will’s shoulders tensed as he turned. He stopped and clenched his fists. _“What?”_

“You don’t look like you’re challenging me.”

“I’ve been working on keeping my aggression in check.”

Hannibal stood when Will didn’t turn back to face him. “Yes, I can see you’ve been working on this. You’re a talented actor.”

Will glanced over his shoulder, eye widening.

Hannibal approached and laid a hand on Will’s back.

“Don’t-”

Hannibal bent closer. “You don’t smell like you’re trying not to challenge me. Sit down and I’ll write you a prescription for a suppressant.”

Will tore away. “Fuck you.”

“I have some, if it’s an emergency.”

“I… I don’t know what you’re-”

“It’s starting. You feel it, don’t you?”

Will paled. His act crashed, shattered at his feet like glass.

Hannibal gave Will’s chair a pat. “Sit.”

“You’re single?” Will whispered.

“Will, please, I am a _doctor_.”

“Right.” Will swallowed and cleared his tight throat. He sat where he was told to.

“I’m guessing you’re not taken?”

“You can smell…? I should leave.” He was asking now.

 _That’s better._ Hannibal pulled his keyring from his pocket and walked over to his locked closet. “Are you on anything right now?”

“No.”

“Have you taken anything within the last thirty days? Any kind of medicine?”

“No.”

“Very good. And do you have any heart or thyroid problems you didn’t mention to Dr. Bloom?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

Hannibal shut and locked the closet.

“Could I have more wine, please?” Will asked. His voice was weak and dry. He pulled his jacket tighter around his chest. It’s straight lines almost made him look more rigid. His beard almost hid his soft features. Almost may fool most people but Hannibal is not one of them.

“You may absolutely have more wine. Do you like it?”

“Yes, thank you.” Will’s pouting frown made Hannibal’s heart race. His large eyes were so sharp and clear.

Hannibal couldn’t stop staring. “Your eyes are green,” he mumbled. “I thought they were blue.”

Will looked with anguish to the setting sun. “It’s the light.”

“Here.” Hannibal handed him a compact with a ring of pills inside. “Are you really sure you want these?”

Will snatched the case from his hand. “I’m positively fucking sure. This is why I didn’t want to talk to someone like you.” He rubbed his face then popped a peach pill out of the tin disc and put it back in the compact. “Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome. It’s safe to take with alcohol.”

Will nodded and downed the pill on a wave of red wine. “God. Thank you. And thanks for not asking why I don’t have a partner or want one to go find one and don’t I want a baby. Like I’m a fucking child who needs to be told what to think. Like that’s all my life can be.”

Hannibal smirked and refilled both their glasses. “I did wonder those things. Should I be ashamed?”

Will didn’t smile. He stared at Hannibal seething. “Did anyone ask you if _you_ wanted a baby when you went to school for six years or more, doctor?”

“No.”

“Of course, not.” Will’s gaze dropped to his cup.

“It’s easier for you to pretend to be something else so you can get want you want out of life?”

“It’s dangerous not to pretend to be something else.”

“You can relax now.”

Will smiled bitterly. “For the moment. Thanks to you.”

“You had Dr. Bloom fooled,” Hannibal confided. “That’s no small feat.”

“She isn’t… like me, is she?”

“No.”

Hope shined in Will’s eyes. “I didn’t think so.”

“She’s not the kind of person you need either. Drink some more. You’re shaking still.”

“Need? No. No! I don’t need anyone.” Will held his hand up and frowned. “Oh no, you’re right. Is there a window of time to or- what if-”

“Give it time,” Hannibal assured him. “Since we’re being so honest and this is still decidedly not therapy, why don’t you tell me what kind of help you’re looking for?”

Will gulped down more wine. He rolled his soft lips together. “Well, I really don’t think you’ll understand.”

“Try me.”

“I want to do so much more than take care of a partner or…” he sneered and shook his head. “I can NOT have children.”

“I read in your referral that you have a successful career as a profiler and professor. Maybe you won’t have to give that up. I have a colleague in your position who has both a partner and a career.” Hannibal smiled sadly. “She doesn’t want to have children either.”

“So her husband, or wife, or whatever gives her freedom? That’s good. Lucky for her. What if I’m not lucky? I’d rather not play a game I’m so likely to lose when I’m fine as I am now.”

Hannibal tilted his head. “What, exactly, are you looking for?”

“An operation.”

Hannibal would have dropped his glass if it wasn’t for his dependable reflexes. He had to make himself breathe. What was happening to him? “What?” he said more abruptly than he would have preferred.

“Jesus.” Will rolled his eyes and blushed furiously. “Please spare me any lectures.”

“That procedure is still illegal in most states.” As though Hannibal cared about the law, or expected Will to be convinced by such an unmoving argument.

“It’s legal in this one.” Will set his glass down. “That’s who I need to see. Please put it in your report.”

“You’re getting the mandatory counseling done to have the operation?” Hannibal’s nails dug into the chair’s suede arm. He bit his tongue and tried to compose himself. “And you couldn’t tell Alana because you think you love her?”

“Excuse me?” Will was startled by that. He sensed a change in the air.

“I apologize. That was unprofessional, even for not-therapy.” Hannibal stood and stalked across the office to the exit. “I understand now.” He ripped his key ring from his pocket and stabbed the lock with it’s key. “It’s terrible, losing control.” He locked the door and turned around.

Will was climbing up the rolling ladder to the library above.

“I never have before.” Hannibal continued, shoving the keys into his pocket. “That must say something very special about you. I can easily understand how the prospect of losing control over your life would lead you to take drastic measures and, yet, I find myself unable to let you do such a terrible thing.” He tried to make himself take his time approaching the ladder, in part to avoid panicking Will into jumping when he found no exit, and in part to prove to himself that he could still control his actions. Hannibal’s hands had begun shaking too. His teeth grinding.

“Will,” he said gently. “You just need the right husband. One who sees your worth goes far beyond your anatomy.”

“Yeah?” Will looked over the railing, carrying a granite half moon, half sun on a cloud pillar over his shoulder. “Like you?” Will pointed to his troubled brow, sneering. “I _hear_ you already.” Will marched to the ladder.

“Are you going to come attack me?” Hannibal felt giddy inside. How could anyone be more endearing? After years of feeling so little so rarely, Hannibal was ill-prepared to handle the exhilaration pulsing through him.

With a grunt, Will swung the granite statue like a golf club at the ladder’s wheels.  

Hannibal darkened. Cold fury extinguished his excitement. “What are you doing?”

He struck again. One side crashed out of its track.

Hannibal grabbed the ladder and headed up. “Stop that! You’ll be trapped!”

“Yes. At least until the pill works. That’s fine with me.” Will swung again with another grunt.

Hannibal’s weight helped to keep the second wheel in place. “Will,  STOP!”

“You have to come up head first, doctor. I’ll kill you if I have to.”

“And go to prison?” Hannibal stopped more than halfway and laughed. “I promise, I’ll be much better than that.”

Will pulled at his shirt collar and wiped his forehead with the back of his trembling hand. “Stop. Stop talking.”

Hannibal placed his chin on a step and looked up at Will with a smile playing on his lips. “Why? Do you feel my voice **deep** inside you?”

“Shut up,” Will rasped.

“Hmm.” Hannibal’s eyes danced. “I feel it too.”

“I said shut… what…”

Hannibal nodded bearing a sharp grin.

“What the fuck did you give me?”

“I want you to come down now.”

“They were suppressants. I know they were. I’ve taken them before. I know that’s what you gave me!”

“If you say so. Or it was Alana’s birth control. Did you try to sleep with her?”

Will sank to his knees. The granite statue fell on its side. “You were supposed to help me.”

“I did. Sleep with her,” Hannibal clarified. He moved up another rung. “Why would you try cleave so desperately to her bosom yet spit on me the moment you meet me?”

“I didn’t!” Will leaned away. _“You’re a doctor,”_ he pled.

“I am going to help you, Will.” Hannibal climbed another rung so they were eye to eye. “Ask me to. Nicely.”

“No.” Will kicked the wheel remaining in its track with both boot heels.

The ladder teetered back. Hannibal growled and jumped off as it fell. He landed on his feet as it crashed to the floor. “Will,” he yelled up at the library. “I’m going to put the ladder back and come for you. How much pain and suffering that means for you depends on what you do between now and then.”

“I’ll fucking kill myself first,” Will mumbled obstinately.

“I’m going to enjoy breaking you,” Hannibal decided aloud. “But I’ll like keeping you under my thumb even more.” He walked backwards until he could see Will huddled against a bookshelf, peering down, back at him. He hugged his knees.

“Your pheromones are intoxicating. My anger is exciting you.”

“Shut. Up.”

“That’s good. We’ll be very good together. I need someone who longs for a strong hand.”

Will sniffed and swallowed. “I’m calling Dr. Bloom.” He pulled his phone out of his jacket.

“Please do. Then she can see what you really are.”

Will froze.

“I may not get her as wet as you are now but she can hold me over until I get you down from there. Would you like that? I know I would. You know what else I would like to do? Will? Are you listening?”

Will gritted his teeth and groaned until, _“Yes,”_ forced its way out of his mouth.

“I’d like to invite her to dinner once you and I are together. Maybe when we’re married.”

“That is not going to happen.”

“It will. I decided for us. She’ll come over one night and I’ll give her a drink that’s too strong for her. Not hard to do, honestly. She’ll pass out, as she inevitably does, and wake up to hear you screaming my name. I think that’s how she should find out what you truly are. Don’t cry.”

Will wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“I don’t actually want to hurt you, exactly. It’s strange. I feel incapable of tolerating the idea that you,” Hannibal bit every syllable of “ _wanted her.”_ He removed his jacket and folded it neatly over the back of his chair. Hannibal unbuttoned his vest and removed that as well. “If I didn’t like her so much, I think I would have to kill her.”

He felt will seize up in sudden terror. “You… you mean that?”

“Yes.” Hannibal looked up with a happy grin. “You profile killers like me." He threw his hands up. “This was truly meant to be. You’ll understand me.”

Will looked at his phone then at Hannibal.

“Maybe you shouldn’t call her over now. It would be dangerous for her.” Hannibal lifted the ladder and set it back in place.

Will's shoulders sank. He put the phone down.

The ladder wobbled as Hannibal ascended it, step by step. “The bond between us is strong already.”

Will crawled back, away from the ladder.

Hannibal stepped off and stood over him. “It’s agony for you now.”

“Yes.” A hot tear ran from the corner of Will’s eye to his ear. He collapsed onto his back, trying to grip the floor.

Hannibal tore his button-up shirt from his chest and unbuckled his belt.  “I want to help you with that. Now, _ask me to_.”

Will bit his red lip. “Please.”

Hannibal couldn’t help diving into Will any more than Will could stop him from landing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter did have a sequel chapter but I wasn't happy with it. Now I'm hoping to make it into a novella-sized story by summer instead.
> 
> Apologies to anyone who may have come back looking for that chapter.


	2. Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Alphadox <3 
> 
> Will hopes to cheat death. Hannibal wants to help. They both hate goodbyes.
> 
> Influenced by Stephen King.

Will rolled the feathers between his thumb and forefinger and looked up to face the dark, ornate house looming over him. The porch steps creaked under his weight.

An iron gargoyle grinned at Will from the tall front door, clenching a heavy knocker between its sharp teeth.

Tucking her fly in his coat pocket, Will marched forward and knocked.

The door sunk inside before he could change his mind.

Dr. Lecter, Will’s strange, long-faced, sharp-eyed, neighbor filled the narrow opening. His quick hand wrapped around the door’s edge like a spider. “Will,” his voice was light but tense. “What’s wrong?”

“Did I interrupt something?”

Dr. Lecter stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. “Nothing that can’t wait. What do you need?”

“I… I can’t.” Will swallowed the hot lump in his throat. His mouth couldn’t form the words so Will pointed a trembling finger to the two-lane highway separating their houses.

Dr. Lecter peered past him then gave a somber nod. “I’ll help you.”

 

“I’m sorry, Will. I hope you find comfort in knowing you gave him the best last year of his life.” Dr. Lecter tied a knot in the industrial-sized garbage bag, stood and dusted his hands.

Will watched from the edge of Lecter’s lawn. “Thank you,” he rasped.

“Where shall we bury your loyal friend?”

Will shoved his hands into his pockets. He pinched her fly between his fingers and told himself to keep breathing. “I don’t want to bury him,” he half-joked. He sniffed and shifted his weight but failed to alleviate the strain on his jelly knees. “I need him. I need him…” he clenched his jaw shut to stop himself.

Lecter approached. In dusk’s dim light, his face didn’t look as sharp as Will remembered. Will had spent more time avoiding Dr. Lecter than speaking to him since she died. 

He put a heavy hand on Will’s shoulder, his fingertips pressing lightly under the bone. “You’ve been through so much this month.”

Will groaned. His shoulders curled in.

“I miss her too.”

Will buried his face in his grasping hands.

Abigail had often hunted on Dr. Lecter’s property. She’d never shared Will’s uneasiness about their neighbor and, in fact, seemed to see him as a second fill-in father on the summers she spent with Will here. She had started many sentences with, “Dr. Lecter says…”

Now fall had descended on Will’s summer house, draining the green and life from the hills, and the brightness from the sky, yet Will was unable to go home and leave Abigail behind.

Then it would be over.

“I think I can help.”

Will wiped his eye on his sleeve. “Help?”

“There’s a special place we can take Winston; a place he might come back from.”

“What?” Will pulled away, jerking his shoulder free. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Lecter withdrew his hand and held it behind his back. “There is a place where the transition from this world to the next isn’t as-”

“Final?” Will snapped like a starving wolf at a dangling piece of fresh meat.

“I’ll take him there for you. You don’t have to put yourself through anymore tonight.”

“But…” an objection didn’t manifest for Will before Dr. Lecter gave a slow twitch of a smile, bent down to the pavement and carried the garbage bag down the hill into the dark forest.

 

The fire crackled and popped. It provided warmth but little light. That was fine. The dark was becoming more appealing with each swig Will took from his bottle of scotch. Will would welcome sleep if he could only know he’d feel his arms dissolving back into the vast chaos to embrace, impossibly, the ones he loved and had lost forever.

Something snapped in the woods.

Will took another swig as Dr. Lecter approached the fire’s light. His normally slick golden brown hair laid disheveled over his glowing eyes. “It’s done.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry-”

“Please. No need to apologize. You’re quite welcome.” Lecter kept one foot in the shadows. “Always.” He circled the fire, at the edge of its light, making his way toward Will. “We haven’t spoken since her funeral.”

“I haven’t had anything to say.”

“You know I’m a psychiatrist. You can talk to me. I’m worried about you, Will.”

“I didn’t know you were that kind of doctor.” It was a white lie; he’d chosen not to remember. “I always told her to wear the orange vest-” Will inhaled sharply. He hadn’t spoken about it. “I bought it for her,” he rambled, laughing mirthlessly. “And a matching hat. Why didn’t she wear it?”

“The choice must have seemed inconsequential at the time. What happened was so unlikely.”

“But I TOLD HER!” Will pushed the point of her hook into the meat of his thumb. “Do you think they knew?”

“... The person who shot her?”

Will nodded and drank some more.

“Yes. I imagine they heard the fall of what they thought to be a deer and ran away once they saw what they had done.” Dr. Lecter crept up behind Will and plucked the bottle from his hand. “I think you should go to sleep now.”

 

Will woke up alone in his cold bed. Daylight pierced his throbbing head so he hid under the covers. He didn’t remember how he got here or know how much of last night he dreamed, but Winston wasn’t curled beside him so the world wasn’t worth facing.

 

Hours passed. He was forced to get up at last to relieve his cramped bladder.

 

Will looked up from washing his hands and caught the terrible sight of his sallow face.

 

His bed was calling to him, but sleep wouldn’t come without help so Will ended up sitting halfway down his staircase, in between his bed and the medicine cabinet in his kitchen.

Just as the buzz of silence had reached an unbearable pitch, Will heard a scratch at his front door.

He slowly stood then took one step down. He made each anguished step from there to the door with leaden feet.

The doorknob felt immobile in his hand until he heard Winston whimper. Will threw open the door and dropped to his knees. He threw his aching arms around Winston’s cold haunches.

 

This time, Dr. Lecter was ready for Will. He was reading on his porch, stretched elegantly in a wicker chair. His cherry brown eyes danced as Will and Winston crossed the highway together to join him.

Lecter closed his book and set it aside. He rose to greet them.

Before he could say anything, Will asked, “Does it work with people?”

 

The next evening, Will and Hannibal Lecter stood over a fresh grave, leaning on two shovels. Beneath the apple tree, not far from a trickling brook, Abigail had been laid to rest in a picturesque setting, which Will thought she would love. This dark craggy hollow with its uneven makeshift grave markers, however, would never see the sun.

Will dropped to his knees, still clutching the shovel’s handle with both fists.

Winston remained quietly by Will’s side. The poor dog didn’t seem to require sleep, food, or drink any longer. He followed Will as if being pulled by a string. When Will strained through the dark to see his dog, his black eyes looked as dead as the day he was hit on the highway.

“Come. You can stay with me tonight,” Hannibal offered.

Will gulped though his throat was dry. “Thanks, but that’s alright.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“No. No, I think I need to be.” Will climbed to his feet and set off for home.

 

Will woke with a start and sat up gripping his damp sheets early the next morning. His thin cotton shirt clung to his chest, saturated with sweat.

Winston sat motionless in the corner of the room between the window and closet. He faced Will but didn’t seem to see him.

 

Will jumped and hit the shower wall when Winston barked downstairs. Shampoo stung his eyes so Will quickly ducked his head under the warm stream and shut the water off.

He emerged from the bathroom and stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Winston was standing at the front door.

There was a knock.

Will grabbed the railing and slowly descended. Winston growled when Will reached for the doorknob. Will turned the knob and cracked the door, then peered through the opening.

Dr. Lecter stood on the porch holding a wide paper bag by its rolled top. “Will?” He pushed the door open but withdrew his hand when he saw Will standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist. “I brought you some lunch.”

Winston lunged without a sound of warning.

Lecter sidestepped the attack as Will caught his collar. “No!” Will pulled Winston back.

Dr. Lecter set the bag on Will’s porch swing and put his hand in his pocket. “Will, this isn’t safe.”

“It’s fine,” Will grunted but Winston tore away and lunged for Dr. Lecter again.

Lecter stepped back and withdrew his hand from his pocket with a bang. When Winston collapsed, he was still aiming the pistol at his furry brow.

Will’s shoulders dropped. A few stinging moments passed in silence on the lonely porch where Abigail had once spent lazy sun-warmed afternoons writing in her journal or weaving fishing line. “I know what to do.”

 

The bonfire smelled like barbeque. Will squeezed Winston’s collar in his fist, closed his eyes, then threw that in too.

“Stay with me tonight. You’re not safe here. It would be good for you to speak with someone… speak to me again.”

Will smiled sadly. “I did enjoy our talks.”

Hannibal smiled back. “I did as well. I miss them.”

“It will be alright.” Will pulled her fly out of his pocket. He kissed the feather and tossed it into the fire. “I’m going to take care of this.” Will gave Dr. Lecter a nod and headed for his pickup.

“Will, wait.” Lecter grabbed his arm and laid the heavy pistol in Will’s hand.

“Thank you.”

 

Hannibal couldn’t sleep that night no matter how well he filled his stomach or how much wine he had. He kept pacing downstairs, peering through the windows. He’d meant to bring Will closer yet he’d only slipped further away.

A fire bloomed across the desolate highway.

 

Will poked at the fire and squirted it with the last of the lighter fluid. He dropped the plastic container and opened his scotch with a pop.

Something thunked against the tailgate.

Will slowly looked over his shoulder at his pickup, facing the fire backward in the lawn. He set the bottle of scotch down and picked up the pistol instead.

The tailgate shook with two thuds.

Will crept closer. “Abigail?” He stumbled back, stopping himself before he fell when the garbage bag sat up, dried mud and dirt racing down its shining surface.

Her fingertips poked and clawed at the black plastic. “Will?”

“Oh my god.” Will dropped Lecter’s gun and scrambled by the fire’s red light, padding the dirt around his folding chair until he snatched his hunting knife off the ground. “It’s ok!”

Headlights zoomed down the highway illuminating Dr. Lecter’s tall black form making long strides across Will’s empty acre.

“It’s alright!” Will put a boot on the truck's bumper. The bed dipped when he jumped up and stepped over the tailgate.

“Will!” Lecter shouted.

“Stay still. It’s alright. It’s alright now.” Will pierced the plastic and brought the knife down to open a long slit. “Abigail…”

The remains of her hand wrapped around his. “Pretty.”

Will blinked and shook his head. “What?”

She touched his face then wrapped her other cold dry hand around his.

His knuckles quivered, choking the knife handle. He held the side of the truck when she lifted his closed fist and twisted his wrist.

“No!” Lecter sprinted quickly closing the last yards between them.

“I want to keep you too,” Abigail hissed sweetly. Will’s knife plunged into his heart with her help.

Hannibal shot her in the head this time. She collapsed as Will gasped and touched the handle protruding from his chest.

“Will?”

His body stiffened, curled like a shriveled cockroach in the truck bed’s corner.

Hannibal opened the tailgate.

He didn’t mean to kill her. He’d been fond of Abigail. Will had begun packing to leave again in the fall, another summer of missed opportunities. Another lonely winter. If Abigail had an accident, they’d have to stay and who else was there to help out but their friendly neighbor?

When she died, Hannibal still saw an opportunity in the misfortune. How horribly things had gone.

After carrying her like a bride, Hannibal dropped Abigail into the fire. He watched her flesh blacken and glow. Then he turned, standing with his back to the smoke.

He checked for a pulse, though he knew it was useless. Finding Will’s wrist and neck cool and lifeless, he gathered his friend into his arms.

 

Hannibal sat on his porch steps until late the next afternoon. He didn’t look up until the dirty boots walked into view.

“Hello. Do you have time to talk now?”

“Hannibal?”

“Come with me.” He stood and Will followed him inside. “We have lots of time.”


	3. Persona & Self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene in which Will and Hannibal continue their conversation after Will brings Hannibal Randall Tier's corpse.
> 
> For Vazoola <3

Will considered his offering, the cold and rigid boy-shaped meat he’d dropped on Hannibal’s table. “I don't think I've ever felt more alive than when I was killing him.”

“Then you owe Randall Tier a debt. How will you repay him?”

They both looked at Tier’s corpse, splayed out before them on Lecter’s smooth, shiny table.

“By giving him what he wanted most,” Will said, at last.

“And how will you do that?”

Will considered the white gauze Hannibal had used to bandage his split and swollen knuckles. “I’ll transform him.”

“Into...?”

“His true self.”

“You want to free him in death from the persona that was his prison in life?”

“Yes.” Will stared into Dr. Lecter’s whiskey-brown eyes, antiseptic and warm. Lecter wished to be Will’s ultimate disinhibitor, and if Will choked and burned as his vision blurred, Hannibal would still be transfixed.

How he longed to be entertained in a world full of dull, predictable people.

Will remembered himself. “Would you help me?”

When Hannibal pretends to smile, he does a good job looking human but when he truly smiles, his eyes darken and dance, his forehead eases into rising -a mask being pulled away- and his flat but sensual mouth widens to reveal sharp incisors. “I’m so glad you asked.”

 

A bitter chill buzzed at a high frequency all around Will when he took the first step into Lecter’s basement. The dread he carried wouldn’t leave him but couldn’t quite touch Will either. In fact, it was all too natural: following Hannibal down into his monster’s lair, Tier’s cold jeans in the crook of Will’s arm, his thin, waxy ankle in Will’s palm, and Hannibal walking backward through the dark with a Cheshire smile.  

 

A bright white light flickered on silently. Will leaned against the long, flat, plastic-wrapped table where they’d set the corpse with his left hand. “This is what you do?” Will asked breathlessly (due to the exertion, he assured himself).

Hannibal’s eyes shined over a subtle smirk. “I do many things.” He rolled up both sleeves so they sat in perfect symmetry above his elbows then retreated into the shadows of the sprawling basement.

“But this is your favorite?”

“Hmm… you know, I’m not sure about that. It’s certainly one of my favorite things.”

Will remembered how unsettling yet refreshing it was to meet someone so guarded, so difficult to read. Everyone before Hannibal had unwittingly assaulted Will with their feelings. It was no one’s fault, not even his own, but lack of intention didn’t make the situation any more tolerable.

It was exhausting. He felt he’d lived a thousand lives. The many hues and flavors of suffering appeared to belong to an infinite palate. Everything outside of suffering was precious to Will, even apathy.

Maybe that explained the pull Hannibal had on him.

At first, Will felt nothing from Hannibal but a probing curiosity. That eventually grew into a fascination, which Will didn’t fully appreciate until the life he’d built crumbled around him. But with that collapse, Hannibal’s layers of masks also cracked.

Another light clicked on.

Hannibal was happier than Will had ever seen him. Unfortunately, his feelings did little to illuminate Hannibal’s endless calculations. He rolled a waist-high stainless steel cabinet over to their waiting canvas. He clicked the top open and unfolded two halves to reveal a neat row of beautiful shining knives.

Will ran a finger across the handles. “Is this place, this… hobby a respite from all the lying?”

“Lying? I don’t lie, Will.”

Will scoffed. “Alright. You, uh, skillfully choose each word to create an impression that serves your purposes, whether that impression matches reality or not.”

Hannibal raised a professorial finger. “Words matter. We should all choose them wisely, like knives.” He then gestured to his displayed collection. “We have to pick the tools that will best serve our purposes. Removing skin, for example, I find is done best with these three: to make clean cuts, to lift the skin, and to saw it off the muscle.

“It’s an art…”

“Yes,” Hannibal said quickly. He handed will a pair of long latex gloves.

One gloved creaked and squeaked around Will’s fat and stiff right hand.“You want to make something ugly-” the other glove snapped at his left elbow.

“Beautiful.” Hannibal offered Will a scalpel. “That’s what I first noticed about you, since we’re in this place of honesty. You are truly beautiful.”

The sides of Will’s face grew hot. He took the scalpel and examined the soft face Randall had hated wearing. “Then why do you want to change me?” he muttered, perhaps more bitterly than he would have liked.

That surprised Hannibal. “I don’t want to change you, I want to help you shed the persona you’ve created and find yourself.”

Will’s brow bore down on his chameleon eyes, which looked blue tonight. “I do not have a ‘persona,’ Dr. Lecter.”

“Now, now, Will, this is a place and an activity that requires honesty. I thought we had promised each other something like that just now.”

Will pressed his lips together and rolled the scalpel’s crisscrossing grip between his rubbery forefinger and thumb.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“No? Are you really autistic? Or did you choose your words and behaviors with care and expertise to create the impression that best served your purposes?”

“Well…” Will frowned, slicing along Tier’s jawline. “I suppose we’re both Impressionists,” he mumbled, at last.

“Perhaps we should make Randall into a water lily.”

Will’s eyes rolled up to meet Hannibal’s.

“Oh, Will.” Lecter’s shark eyes had transformed, sparkled like a giddy child’s. “You are truly lost if you enjoy my humor.”

“I don’t.”

“Are we being honest, or not?”

Will sighed. What was the bigger surprise; not reading someone fully, or finally being read by someone else?

But the scales were balancing, Will reminded himself. He was the one calculating now, reading and misleading while Lecter felt he was gleefully pulling the strings.

He brought the scalpel up behind Randall’s ear. Time hadn’t stretched it very far beyond a round boy’s ear. What an odd body for a monster to have lived in. It was compelling, in truth, for Will to redress God’s mistake. It was sublime and it was a joke. He furrowed his brow. “ _Can_ something be sublime and a joke at the same time?”

“Of course. Humor is transcendent because it reveals a deeper truth.” Hannibal slid his able hands into gloves of his own. “What’s meaningful is a joke.”

“What’s personal isn’t funny, but it means so much to us.”

Hannibal drew the pointed blade down Tier’s rigid abdomen. “When we hurt the most, it’s God who is laughing.”

“So, if you don’t feel anything…”

Hannibal cracked open Randall’s rib cage. “The joke’s on _Him_.”

Will wiped his brow on his shoulder and picked up the curved blade that Lecter recommended. “How did you make Randall Tier into this?”

After another crack, Randall’s chest opened like spreading wings. “I don’t make people do things. I try to lead them in a productive direction, at times, but their actions remain their own. I didn’t change Randall. I only helped to uncover what was already there.”

Will sawed at the tendrils of white flesh chaining Randall’s face to his gore on his oval skull. “How many people have you _guided_?”

“No man is an island. We all guide and influence the people close to us.”

Will’s jaw flexed. “And vice versa.”

Cupping Randall’s small heart in both hands, Hannibal nodded. “My, my, Will,” he said in hushed awe. “Look what a natural you are.”

Randall’s human mask was off at last.

The scales were balancing. 

Eye to eye, Will could feel Hannibal’s pride but not his own horror at what his hands had done.

**Author's Note:**

> Leaving a comment is an exceptionally polite thing to do. ;)


End file.
